Cats and the Black Death
Some atheists and even some prominent scientists claim that the Black Death was caused or at least made worse by a wholesale massacre of cats ordered by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. But is this true? And where did this strange story come from? In this episode on the History for Atheists video channel we look at this claim and several others associated with it, examine the history of the pandemic of the 1340s known as the Black Death and discover the source of these common but, actually, completely false ideas.
For those who prefer the audio version, the Podcast edition is now up on Buzzsprout or available on most podcast platforms. Or you can listen to it on the History for Atheists podcast page.
10 thoughts on “Cats and the Black Death”
Thanks Tim. I’ve also seen it said that dogs were destroyed too. Not by ‘the church’ but by town authorities attempting to reduce what was believed to be the bad air that caused plague.
Yes, I discuss that toward the end of the video.
Yes – I just came back to say ‘please delete my previous comment’… because the comment was made to the post, but now I’ve heard your podcast.
So many areas of medieval pop-history could benefit from your lucidity. I assume you’ve read ‘The great cat massacre’ book – very interesting and nothing to do with the church.
I really enjoyed your seemingly effortless takedown of the great cat massacre explanation of the Black Death. It’s amazing what can be accomplished with a little bit of skepticism. Simple explanations to complex phenomena like plagues should raise red flags even for celebrity scientists like deGrasse Tyson.
I think we’re running low on topics. I’ve never heard of like the last three myths.
I suppose one of the perils of being close to the subject of things atheists get wrong about history is I come across these more obscure examples fairly often. I can assure you, even if you’ve never heard of them, they are common.
But I don’t know what “last three” you’re referring to. The last three articles are on (i) cats and the Black Death, (ii) Jesus Mythicism and (iii) the Galileo Affair. Of those, only (i) could be said not be common and widely circulated among atheists.
problem is you can’t “get ahead” of whatever’s going to be concocted next–it could be something about the Antikythera Device, or that The Church forbade people from learning math because it wanted a monopoly on calculating Easter, or anything really
I had never heard of this one until recently, and then I heard it quite a bit (being a hypochondriac of considerable anxiety, I absolutely lap up anything disease related).
I had heard of the supposed effect of culling cats and dogs in response to bubonic plague, but only in reference to the governing powers of London during the height of their plague problem, and it was reported to be simply a desperate response to bring things under control, there was no religious motivation ascribed to it. It was in a (suitably sensationalist) documentary on the Discovery Channel in about 2001-2002. If I ever recall the name of it I’ll pop back.
The religion thing seemed to all blow up recently, though it’s just my perception – I could be wrong.
The recent Covid pandemic has given various social media cliques and amateur scientists something new to pretend to be experts about, thus, perhaps, something new to attach their grievance of choice to?
That aside, the role disease has played in the human journey is certainly an important and fascinating topic, and a big thank you to Tim for covering/clarifying a small part of that tale here.
Thanks as usual Tim.
No CRAPPY GOLDEN ORRERY AWARD for the past year?
Thought it was a great idea haha.
And somehow I’m also enamoured by year in review articles…
The lack of a Crappy Golden Orrery Award last year was a combination of two factors (i) a relative lack of worthy nominees (which is good) and (ii) a rather hectic December for me. But I think we’ll see it back again in 2023.